Archive for June, 2014

Our family was thrilled when we bought a home because the 4 of us were previously squished into a 2 bedroom condo and were ready to literally plant some roots! There was a park next to our condo so we were always able to play and explore, but there’s really nothing like having the freedom to do that anytime in your own backyard and make your own decisions about what to plant and grow. We had to totally redo our entire house once we purchased it (roof, windows, interior, plumbing, floors, you name it – it was redone!) and the garden was on the back burner for a while. We made small improvements here and there for the last two years and I’m very proud of our progress.

Both front and back yards were covered in junpier bushes and red and white rock. The soil was incredibly dry and full of clay with made attempting to dig anything out nearly impossible. James was able to remove a few bottle brush trees in the back by himself, but we needed professionals to help with the bushes.

I mean seriously, it’s bush next to bush next to bush.

We also had landscapers add irrigation and a lawn in the front and back. This in addition to pulling out the juniper bushes took 3 guys one week. We also found out a year later that the tree in the back was a fruit tree despite it looking sad and not trimmed maybe ever. We trimmed it back and discovered that we now got to enjoy plums every Summer!

About a year and a half ago, we bought a few raised beds along with lots of organic compost to get started in one corner and work our way around to the chicken coop. Here’s Alice about a year ago supervising her ladies.

Sometimes we get surprises! I’m assuming it’s from the birds and squirrels who love to sneak a snack and possibly deposit seeds. We had volunteer pumpkins and carrots!

Fruit trees:
*Cherry with three different varieties
*Mandarin
*Meyer lemon
*Lime
*Fig
*Plum
*Apple with six different varieties
*And we are lucky enough to enjoy a few apricots with a neighbor’s tree that drops sweet treats into our side yard

Patrick and Alice and I have great fun with our popsicle maker. The other day when our neighbors’ apricot was literally raining down fresh fruit on our heads, we decided to create a new frozen treat together.

I had some plain greek yogurt and since that along with the apricots can be a mouthful of tart, I added some lavender honey to sweeten our pops.

I smashed up the apricots with a fork and added them to the yogurt along with the honey. There are no measurements here – just what you see pictured above. This is really more of an inspirational picture popsicle idea!

We froze these for a few hours and as you can see, they were a big hit!

Below is an affiliate link to the popsicle mold I used to create these sweet treats.

I was visiting my favorite local botanical shop, The Botanist a few months ago and found an unreal selection of succulents. Growing up, one of my Grandmother’s best friends had a spectacular backyard full of large, tiny, and incredibly rare succulents that she herself had found over the years. I loved how unique and colorful each could be, and that inspired me to grow a few in small containers in college. I wanted to do something creative with what I had still had along with what I purchased at The Botanist. I knew I had to incorporate my favorite color – bright pink – into the mix, too!

Unfortunately, it took me about 2 months to find a proper container for this project so I didn’t get started right away. I couldn’t find what I wanted after visiting many nurseries so I decided to go with a shape I liked and paint something myself. I cannot explain how much I loved the warm peach color but it wouldn’t really match the hot pink accent. I think I may have to get more of these for future planting!

I started by painting this white, not forgetting to paint a few inches inside as well.

I waited for that to dry before taping and painting a shape to coordinate colors with the plants and pop of neon pink.

Once that layer dried, I filled the containers with potting mix and arranged my succulents.

The final step was to load some hot pink aquarium rocks on the top layer for a huge pop of color!

I had several leftover clippings, dirt, rocks, and other containers I wasn’t using so I added a few others to the other side of my front door.

These beauties are perfect for my porch since it gets tons of sun and doesn’t require watering. What creative ways do you plant your succulents?

Below are affiliate links to a few items I used for this project.

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